Thread by @TerryReintke

The backlash in Europe is a strategy executed by a well-funded coalition of reactionaries, autocrats and fascists trying to (re-)create an ethnically pure, authoritarian, ultrapatriachal “natural order”. The fight against sexual self-determination is at the core of it.

How?

Orbán’s state of the nation speech - pressuring Hungarian women to have more children - is an example of how the attack on women’s rights feeds into a broader agenda to destroy liberal democracies based on human rights, equality and freedom.

Here are several quotes from his speech which pretty well exemplify the narrative behind the forces supporting the backlash:

“30 years after the fall of communism, on the eve of a pan-European parliamentary election, Europe finds itself in the position that we must stand up again for our Hungarian identity, for our Christian identity, protect our families and communities, and also protect our freedom.“

„Brussels is taking our powers away from us one by one, and then they do not know what to do with them. George Soros has openly announced that his goal is to protect migrants, and national borders are an obstacle to this plan.“

„Those who decide in favour of immigration and migrants – to whatever end they may do so – are in fact creating countries with mixed populations. The historical traditions of these countries are coming to an end, and a new world is unfolding.“

„This is how the European Left has become the advocate of speculators, world citizenship, world government and, most recently, of global migration, taking on the role of the gravedigger of nations, the family and the Christian way of life.“

„We are living in times when fewer and fewer children are being born throughout Europe. People in the West are responding to this with immigration: [...]. Hungarians see this in a different light. We do not need numbers, but Hungarian children.“

„In our minds, immigration means surrender. If we resign ourselves to the fact that we are unable to sustain ourselves even biologically, by doing so we admit that we are not important even for ourselves.“

„Every woman under the age of forty who marries for the first time will be eligible for a preferential loan of 10 million forints to start their new lives. After the birth of a child we will suspend repayment of the loan for three years...

... and after the arrival of a second child we will suspend it for another three years, and write off one third of the principal debt. If a third child is born, we will cancel the remaining part of the loan in its entirety.”

Orbán’s enemies are diversity, freedom, equality and democracy. Represented by feminists, queers, George Soros (aka Jews), Muslims, Roma, in fact all minorities, “Brussels”, the Left, everyone calling for rule of law and fundamental rights.

(This is by no means a development exclusive to Hungary. Or Eastern Europe. This speech could very well be repeated at a party congress of the extreme right in Germany.)

(Also: None of this narrative is really new. But still we seem to have waited far too long to resist the discourse restricting women’s freedoms or the rights of minorities.)

I believe we need three reactions to these kinds of developments:

1. Stop treating women’s rights and sexual self-determination as a marginal issue! This battle is happening. And our uteruses are the battle fields. Whether we want it or not.

2. Firmly defend our grounds as democrats. INCLUDING the protection of rule of law, fundamental rights and freedoms.

3. Passionately fight about our differences. As politicians of different democratic parties we do not represent a STATUS QUO, but different ALTERNATIVES of how to shape European societies.

There is a really good documentary by ARTE demonstranting the already well-established ties amongst anti-choice movements in Europe and globally (sorry, in German):